Tag: Gluten Free

Time to post another yummy meal that I was able to make. This time I had some help making it from my 4 year old nephew. However, as this is a public space I will not be posting any photographs of him. I call it the melting pot of pasta because that’s what it really is. It’s a melting pot of different things.

So to make this dish if you want to do it the same way I did you will need the following:

Red Potatos

Gluten Free Pasta or regular if you don’t need the GF

Sweet Italian Sausage

Tomato sauce of your choice or get creative and use homemade sauce if you have the time to make it

Garlic powder or fresh garlic your choice

bay leaf

basil

rosemary

parsley

crushed red pepper flakes

broccoli

These are the spices used for the dish

Now when it comes to the broccoli what I like to do because I find that it really brings out a lot of flavor is roast the broccoli. Take out a baking sheet and spread the broccoli out. Sprinkle the broccoli with olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic. If you want to add even more flavor you can absolutely and I recommend it if you want to add Parmesan to this as well. It goes into the oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. That is just the right amount of time to roast the broccoli perfectly.

While the broccoli is roasting I suggest you get started on the rest of the meal. The sausage is going to take you a good ten minutes depending on how many people you are trying to serve to get it done right. While you are doing the meat don’t be afraid to get that pasta water going because the noodles are going to take 10 minutes to get cooked right. Don’t forget when it comes to your noodles to add the salt to the water to add some flavor to the pasta noodles.

The potatoes that’s another ball game in itself. They have to also be boiled and then at the very end quickly pan fried to be added to the dish. I don’t suggest combining everything with sauce at the end because this dish can be done with red sauce or if you just want to do a simple butter or olive oil sauce it would taste good that way as well.

I suggest mixing the sausage, potatoes, and noodles all together without sauce. Let everyone decide on the sauce.

Now when it comes to sauce. If you follow my blog you know that I don’t just make plain Jane tomato sauce. Even if I do it store bought I always add spices and things to the sauce. The spices I listed at the beginning are what I add into my tomato sauce when I make it for my pasta dishes. That is if I’m not doing it homemade, that is an entirely different ballgame.

The spices in the sauce before it’s mixed together.

When serving make sure to have the main mixture in a separate bowl. Then have different sauces depending on your crowd in separate dishes for them to be able to choose which one they want to put on the pasta. This is just an example of the dish on a plate that we had when I was down visiting my family.

Doesn’t it look delicious?

The reason I call this a melting pot is because you can add anything you want really into this dish. The only thing I don’t suggest doing is adding broccoli into it. The broccoli is made to just be that little extra side dish to accompany the pasta dish. It’s not meant to be part of the main dish itself.

All the photos in this post are credit to my sister in law who I am very lucky supports my love of doing this blog and posting about my food that I cook. Thanks Nikki!

I hope that if you try to make this dish at home you have as much fun as I did making it and the people you make it for enjoy it as much as my family did when I made it for them.

I’m one of the rare ones, the ones that actually like to eat broccoli. Even as a kid. I’ve always liked broccoli. There are so many different ways you can cook it and it will taste good…hello broccoli and cheddar soup. That’s one of the best kinds of soups.

I was browsing through facebook yesterday and came across Gordon Ramsey making this same dish. I of course had to use what I already had in my kitchen which was luckily what he had in his kitchen as well. The only difference was he used more thick rice noodles than I had in my kitchen. I had thin rice noodles but it still turned out the same way. I decided that I wanted to make it because I like Asian dishes every now and then. I just don’t like spicy ones.

Basically its very simple what you need to make the dish. You just need chicken breast, eggs, a little olive oil, garlic, soy sauce of your choice and brand, and broccoli. I use baby broccoli florets because they are smaller and easier to work with. You can use whichever you want to use.

Now for the steps to prepare everything:

butterfly the chicken and pound it to get it as thin as possible

slice the chicken into thin strips

take your garlic and prepare that as necessary

cut your broccoli into smaller pieces

boil water for your rice noodles

when water is done boiling pour it into a bowl and soak the noodles (no longer than 4-6 minutes)

pour your oil into the pan and heat it up

crack two eggs into a bowl and whisk them

Once the prep is done now it’s time to do the cooking!

add the chicken into the pan and season with plain old salt and pepper (you want it as thin as possible so that it gets that little crispy edges but stays moist.

take the cooked chicken and push it aside, add in the garlic and broccoli

add some soy sauce to mix in to get the flavor

remove the items in the pan and wipe out the pan to prepare the egg

pour the egg into the center of the pan

you want to whisk them only slightly once they start cooking in the pan

then when the eggs are not fully cooked at the items back into the pan

Mix everything in the pan together, then add the noodles and a touch more soy sauce

Once that is all said and done and it’s mixed together it’s time to enjoy it!

Well it’s that time again. Time for another recipe out of my brain. So first things first in order to make them you need to start out with ground turkey. I use 93 percent lean meat but you may use whatever variation you want to use. I know that people say that more fat meat sticks together but when you are making any sort of meatball you always will have the egg and breadcrumbs as your binding agent so it won’t matter if you want to use the lean meat. I don’t like fatty meat so that’s just my preference. I always trim the fat off of steaks or anything like that.

Then you want to make sure that you have the breadcrumbs, eggs, and whatever spices you want to add to the meat in your kitchen. This is what I started out with before they became turkey meatballs. Sorry I figured you all wouldn’t need a picture of raw ground turkey to get the idea that you need it in your kitchen for this meal. Haha!

I like things to taste very Italian which is why if you read what spices I used there is a very Italian flavoring to them. So basically the next step is the fun part of the meal. Make sure if you don’t like raw meat like myself that you have your gloves ready because you’re mixing it all up by hand so get ready to get squishy! Find your mixing bowl throw the meat, egg, breadcrumbs (mine are gf of course) and spices all in there and then toss it up! It will look like this when you’re done mixing them together.

Once you’ve got them mixed you may bake them in the oven if you’d like or do what I do. So I took canola oil and a skillet and partially cooked them in a skillet first. Then pre-heated the oven to 425 and cooked them the rest of the way through in the oven. Once they’re cooked they will look like this.

After that it’s eat them however you want to eat them. You can eat them in pasta as a substitute for ground beef which is more fattening than turkey. You can dip them in soy sauce if you want that kind of flavoring. It’s really all up to you how you choose to enjoy them but I sure hope that you enjoy them!

If you’re anything like me you love fried rice and can’t go more than a few weeks without having it. Tonight’s blog is all about turning leftovers into something delicious and yummy. I often times find myself ordering more than i can actually eat. When I order Chinese I order off the healthy menu and just get steamed chicken and veggies and brown rice. So before I get started let me tell you what you’ll need in order to turn your leftover steamed veggies and meat into something delicious.

So now it’s time to show you how I took all of this and turned it into something delicious.

First things first you want to heat up a little bit of oil in the pan that you’re using to cook in. Then you want to add the veggies into the pot. Once you have the veggies in you want to add in just a splash of sesame oil and rice cooking wine. Also add the butter for added cooking. Once they’re all in the pot you want to cook them and simmer them so they absorb the flavor. It will look something like this. You want to add in the garlic while you are cooking the veggies as well.

While the veggies are cooking you want to get the egg portion of the meal ready. I scramble my egg separate from the other veggies but you can just as easily add it into the mix if you’d like. I just don’t like having anything get mixed in with my eggs unless I am making an omelet. So once that is done you add the egg into the veggies.

Once you have the egg added into the mix you want to make sure you stir it up. Keep an eye on things and judge if you think you need to add a bit more butter or oil to the pan. You want to make sure you are keeping the veggies from burning or sticking. You also want to make sure the egg fries a bit too so monitor the temperature you have your stove top set at.

While you are getting all of that ready it’s time to get the meat ready. Now luckily my chicken was already cooked otherwise that’s an entire other step you’d have to add into your meal prep is cooking the meat you are going to be using for your fried rice. Once you have your meat if you are choosing to add it all cut and ready add that into the pot and stir it up a bit. If it’s left over meat you want to make sure to stir it around and let it heat back up.

The last step is the most important part because you can’t have the fried rice without the rice. You want to take your cold rice. Usually cook it three days ahead of time if it’s not left overs from when you ordered out. You want it to be cold when it hits the pan because that’s the only way it’s going to fry the way that it should.

Add the cold rice in

Once you’ve got the rice added in it’s time to add the soy sauce. In my case I use gluten free soy sauce but you may use whatever soy sauce you like to use. Some people will give you an exact measurement of what you should add. I always go by the eye ball method. You don’t want to overdue it though as soy sauce does have a lot of salt content to it. Once all is said and done it should look a little something like this.

That’s it…the next step is just for you to grab a pair of chop sticks or a fork and enjoy:)